Beginning of a New Era

[zedrummer]

On 3/8/2023 at 2:50 PM, lucky1 said:

Hahaha, if you would personally know me, I guess you would not say that. Guess that is the drawback of growing up in a family of psychologists, you overinterpret things while they are sometimes just simple.😜

So everything is perfect, you are perfectly right not to be afraid, and you remain true to your image.

 

On 3/8/2023 at 2:50 PM, lucky1 said:

No of course not, but definitely not as fast as you did it. Basically add a serial driver to dmdext plus 100 lines of arduino code for the display - done is  the 100% french development.

Sure not, I wouldn't have done it as fast as that, who talks about time? Did you do it in a snap? I said that some may have done the same work (I don't even talk about me). It was the answer to "Without my work together with DJRobX in the first step and later mista-funky for 64 colors you would not even have a working colorization code in dmdext.".

But if you really want to talk about me, why would I had to reinvent the wheel and restart from scratch when the code is already there? You really don't understand what is behind the collaborative work in the open-source, do you?

[freezy]

Guys, chill.

 

Let Lucky1 enjoy his holidays, let's continue with this when he's back.

[tabascoman77]

I've lost count of how many times (and the number of different internet pinball forums) lucky1 has been called out for his garbage, only for him to act innocent and then get lit up for playing dumb.

 

I still have my VNI stuff and never made the move to PAC and I never will because I cannot support someone like lucky1.

[Ashram56]

@freezy

 

May you clarify this statement ? : "  but for many who do, it's become a non-negligible business "

 

The wording is odd, but to me it implies that it's a significant business

So this would mean that existing colorization authors who sell their colorization would actually want to protect their work, am I correct ?

 

Or should the wording imply "it's a neglictible business", in which case authors pretty much don't care ?

 

Regards

[freezy]

Sounds pretty clear to me. Why would I mean negligible when I write non-negligible?

 

I don't want my project hijacked or mutilated by a commercial gig that I'm no part of.

[Ashram56]

While I understand your position, this means a very simple fact: most colorization authors want protection. 

 

For Serum to be successful, it has to attract sufficient colorization authors that would be interested into spending time creating/porting content.

 

So Serum has to either:

- offer some very compelling capabilities that are not available elsewhere to attract authors

- offer protection to existing authors 

 

I understand that Serum editor offers collaborative work, which is a very good step in the direction of gathering more people to collaborate. That's a capability that I found was sorely missing in the current PIN2DMD colorization tool

 

As to offer protection to existing authors, I think that's the point open for debate. I understand that you don't want to be part of any commercial endeavour, but in the end, if Serum in it's current form is not successful (because not enough authors transitioning over), then it would make sense to reconsider this position. It is technically possible to have an Open source SW implementing a key mechanism (private key to each colorization author for ex) to support that capability.

 

I guess we'll see in a few months time if Serum has sufficient traction

 

Regards

 

 

[freezy]

2 minutes ago, Ashram56 said:

So Serum has to either:

- offer some very compelling capabilities that are not available elsewhere to attract authors

- offer protection to existing authors 

 

Or, maybe people just want to support open source, knowing that it's not controlled and dependent on one single person.

 

4 minutes ago, Ashram56 said:

you don't want to be part of any commercial endeavour

 

I don't want my project hijacked or mutilated by a commercial endeavor. I already proposed a solution that would work with PAC and thus the commercial activities, which was refused.

 

[zedrummer]

27 minutes ago, Ashram56 said:

this means a very simple fact: most colorization authors want protection.

The question is: Are we really sure of that? How many authors openly express their view about that? I don't say that it is wrong, but we just have @Lucky1's word.

And among the few I know that have already released a VNI or PAC and who don't care about PAC or Serum, some of them are just not ready to switch to a new editor where they should get some new reflexes to save time. So perhaps we just have to convince new authors, I perfectly understand that learning a new software when you are used to one is not really enticing.

[Tikimaster]

I could live with having three different dll in the vpinmame folder as long as everything works smoothly. Three formats make everything much more complicated, that's not good, but if the interests are so far apart, there should be a way to use versions in parallel.

[Ashram56]

1 hour ago, zedrummer said:

The question is: Are we really sure of that? How many authors openly express their view about that? I don't say that it is wrong, but we just have @Lucky1's word.

And among the few I know that have already released a VNI or PAC and who don't care about PAC or Serum, some of them are just not ready to switch to a new editor where they should get some new reflexes to save time. So perhaps we just have to convince new authors, I perfectly understand that learning a new software when you are used to one is not really enticing.

 

True, we don't, at least not from them directly.

 

what we do know however:

- They did state to Freezy it's a significant business (first post in the thread)

- There were issues in the past where some unscrupulous individuals distributed realpin colorization files. This was one of the reason why UUID lock was introduced

- On all but one of my real pin machines (a little bit less than 10 different machines), the authors moved to this locked version (Martin included - and he's been the author for a lot of colorizations). The exception being those that were free for RealPin in the first place (slippifish comes to mind with his CFTBL colorization)

 

So while I don't have firm statistical data, IMO I think it's a fair (and logical) extrapolation to state that any colorization author who is actively selling their work would at least prefer content protection.

 

Just to give a little bit of perspective: in RealPin world, a ColorDMD (a commercial product supporting pretty much every dot machine) costs more than 500 dollars. A PIN2DMD cost about 100 euros (ZeDMD even less) - well provided you can find STM32, but that's a different subject. So as a realpin user, paying 20 or 30 euros to a colorization author is absolutely fair, it's even a moral obligation in my mind (knowing that these machines cost thousands of dollars). And as a content provider (which I'm not - I tried, I gave up), I would be pissed if my colorization files were circulated to save two dozen bucks on a few thousand dollar machines

 

Don't get me wrong, I would love Serum to be successful. I'm just pointing out the perceived weakness of a full open source solution with no content protection. 

And the fact that ZeDMD does not support RealPin anyway.

[Wylte]

17 minutes ago, Ashram56 said:

- On all but one of my real pin machines (a little bit less than 10 different machines), the authors moved to this locked version (Martin included - and he's been the author for a lot of colorizations). The exception being those that were free for RealPin in the first place (slippifish comes to mind with his CFTBL colorization)

This one was muddied by PAC being sold as a solution to a potential copyright takedown threat.  Authors were told that they needed to make the switch now or else colorizations as a whole (and/or VPU) might get shut down, and a method was provided that made it easy to do so.  Authors expressed surprise when the real situation was explained by Freezy in the "End of an Era" post, and a couple of projects became available as vni/pal again.

[okerra]

40 minutes ago, Ashram56 said:

 

Cierto, no lo hacemos, al menos no de ellos directamente.

 

lo que sí sabemos sin embargo:

- Le dijeron a Freezy que es un negocio importante (primera publicación en el hilo)

- Hubo problemas en el pasado en los que algunas personas sin escrúpulos distribuyeron archivos de colorización de realpin. Esta fue una de las razones por las que se introdujo el bloqueo UUID

- En todas menos una de mis máquinas de pines reales (un poco menos de 10 máquinas diferentes), los autores cambiaron a esta versión bloqueada (incluido Martin, y él ha sido el autor de muchas colorizaciones). La excepción son aquellos que eran gratuitos para RealPin en primer lugar (me viene a la mente Slippifish con su coloración CFTBL)

 

Entonces, aunque no tengo datos estadísticos firmes, en mi opinión, creo que es una extrapolación justa (y lógica) afirmar que cualquier autor de coloración que esté vendiendo activamente su trabajo al menos preferiría la protección del contenido.

 

Solo para dar un poco de perspectiva: en el mundo RealPin, un ColorDMD (un producto comercial compatible con casi todas las máquinas de puntos) cuesta más de 500 dólares. Un PIN2DMD cuesta alrededor de 100 euros (ZeDMD incluso menos), siempre que pueda encontrar STM32, pero ese es un tema diferente. Entonces, como usuario de realpin, pagar 20 o 30 euros a un autor de coloración es absolutamente justo, es incluso una obligación moral en mi mente (sabiendo que estas máquinas cuestan miles de dólares). Y como proveedor de contenido (que no soy, lo intenté, me di por vencido), me enojaría si mis archivos de coloreado circularan para ahorrar dos docenas de dólares en unas pocas máquinas de miles de dólares.

 

No me malinterpreten, me encantaría que Serum tuviera éxito. Solo estoy señalando la debilidad percibida de una solución de código abierto completa sin protección de contenido. 

This logic in a project in which almost everything is open does not have much weight, who is protecting the developers and authors of tables?  are they less important?  Wouldn't they deserve a reward?  Just to give an example, I could give many, but this hobby for me is just that, a few crazy people who are passionate about what they do and gladly share it.  Others are simply thinking about money, for that I have a job and this is a hobby

[Ashram56]

Reading through my message again, I realize that my reasoning was not really clear.

 

So let me re-articulate it

 

- For Serum to be successful, you need colorization authors to jump on board. It could be because they support the intent (Opensource), or because they have an interest into doing it and Serum brings them capabilities for doing new stuff not seen anywhere else. Time will tell if this approach alone is successful

 

- Another path for Serum is to have current colorization author converting their work over to Serum. For some (slippifish for ex), there is no business incentive, he did it for free and just for the fun of it. But it still requires him a lot of work to convert.

 

For others however, colorization has become both a hobby, for which they supply, free of charge, colorization for the vpin community, and an income stream as they charge realpin owners (which as indicated above, should have no qualm spending 20 dollars or so to get their colorization).

For them to convert to Serum, they need two things:

1/ Content protection for RealPin

2/ Support for Serum on an adequate DMD HW running on a RealPin. Unlikely to happen with PIN2DMD for obvious reasons, and unfortunately ZeDMD does not have yet DMD signals detection and support

 

1/ could be solved at ZeDMD level by developing an Open Source UUID encryption/decryption scheme (using private key mechanism). This implies that the supporting team behind ZeDMD would feel comfortable with this. It's not related to Open Source (since nothing requires closed source component, even with encryption), it's related to Free vs Paid. This would only apply to Realpin, not vpin.

 

2/ Can only be solved by an intermediate HW module, or an evolution of ZeDMD itself, essentially converting DMD signals into USB for ZeDMD consumption. I know of at least two projects upon which this could be based on (one of them from a member who posted on this thread I believe)

 

If both are solved, then you have a much higher chance of success converting current colorization authors to Serum.

 

Otherwise, Serum will remain a vpin only solution, dependent completely on community support for success.

 

As for whether colorization authors should give their work for free : it's not my place nor anyone else to decide whether their work is free of charge, it's their choice. You might not agree with it, but in the end you don't have any solution anyway. Plus to date, this only applies to Realpin, not vpin.

 

In retrospect, this whole discussion should actually take place in the "Why Serum" thread.

 

In any case, play pinball, have fun

 

Regards

[Cliffy]

1 hour ago, okerra said:

This logic in a project in which almost everything is open does not have much weight, who is protecting the developers and authors of tables?  are they less important?  Wouldn't they deserve a reward?  Just to give an example, I could give many, but this hobby for me is just that, a few crazy people who are passionate about what they do and gladly share it.  Others are simply thinking about money, for that I have a job and this is a hobby

But thats not the case for all, I'm afraid. In my case my hobby became my job  and it's how I feed my family. Yes it's still a hobby that I gladly share wherever I can - and I'm more than happy to do so. It's not always a binary choice, hobby vs business, is all I'm sayin'

[PEandS1Ws]

Post removed at the request of Dazz

[okerra]

Hace 30 minutos, Cliffy dijo:

Pero ese no es el caso para todos, me temo. En mi caso mi hobby se convirtió en mi trabajo y así alimento a mi familia. Sí, sigue siendo un pasatiempo que con gusto compartir siempre que puedo, y estoy más que feliz de hacerlo. No siempre es una elección binaria, hobby vs negocio, es todo lo que digo

As long as it's not at the expense of others, I don't see anything wrong, it's really not so much a free vs. paying thing, but if someone wants to do it for free, don't put more sticks in the wheels than the one who wants to do it paying, if only it were money would not remove my working pin2dmd to put a zedmd, as you see for me it's not just about money, just a ship that now I don't want to be in

Edited March 8, 2023 by okerra

[freezy]

Wow, this is way more civil than I expected it to be. Thanks guys ❤️

 

I'm not against monetization per SE, specially if it fits into an ecosystem (real pins) where the competition is charging a multiple of what you guys do. But there is an undeniable dynamic between our ecosystem (v-pins), where some authors don't care about real pins because they aren't selling, and some authors care less about v-pins because they sell and v-pins don't buy. So you have to find solutions that address both parties.

 

The problem that I have is that I'm not feeling that there's a good balance. I have the impression that the v-pin community purely serves as a means to an end. It seems to me that every decision favors the real pin ecosystem. New innovations are greeted with hostility and are seen as a potential competition against the business. Open source? Not anymore. License violation? Not important. A new DMD? Hell, no!

 

At some point it gets tiresome. What's important to me is the virtual community. And seeing a system that I've helped create getting more and more closed, breaks my heart. I've tried hard to come up with solutions that might work and satisfy both parties. But every compromise is a fight, and now we're here where I don't want to compromise any further.

 

I'm not trying to force anyone into doing anything. My stuff will always be open, and I can live with a hostile fork. What's important to me is that the community is at least aware of my side of the story, so you can decide for yourself how you want to handle the situation.

[RusstyT]

Wow, I really hope there is some room for forgiveness and good will to move forward. ZedDrummer has shown contrition for making authors DMD's available. We all make mistakes and betrayal of trust is a hard one to come back from. I challenge anyone who has not been in that position to quietly reflect how that became so fricken perfect.😇 I admire his willingness to fess up in this public forum. I'd have to say the chance of a repeat would be extremely unlikely because of the humiliation from the community that would follow. Freezy is not asking for financial reward and it doesn't appear that Zeddrummer is going to retire in the chateau in the vineyards of southern France. Lucky1 has a great product that can be improved with the collaboration of Freezy's. I think that all 3 would enjoy the benefits of a collaboration. I hope this occurs because all will grow and be stronger. The trouble with living in fear is that eventually becomes a reality and often driven by our actions. 

[Ashram56]

" I have the impression that the v-pin community purely serves as a means to an end.  "

 

You are absolutely correct, although I don't think it's really on purpose. Pinsound/altsound history has followed the exact same path: engage with the vpin community to get alternative sound pack content, that could then be used on a HW solution sold to realpin owners (and from which they stepped out later on by encrypting their sound packs). 

 

There's more value for realpin owner to leverage what has been done in vpin, primarily because of the use case (it makes sense to improve a real pin by adding PuP Packs capability for example, it's far less easier to find something coming from the realpin world that would benefit vpin).

 

However Realpin has a major incentive for contributors: monetization. You would probably not have altsound if Pinsound had not started the discussions and engagement early on. Maybe at a later time there would have been an equivalent solution, but there's no denying Pinsound kickstarted the project.

 

Likewise for colorization authors: I took a look at the available colorization, and roughly 80% to 90% of them offer both virtual pin and real pin. There are very few contributors that are vpin only or offer their realpin colorization for free. So in my opinion, not many colorization authors will move to Serum unless the two points I raised above are solved (content protection and support for realpin HW)

 

So if Serum wants to take the path of "vpin only", then it has to offer significant value add for vpin individual contributors. The number one thing I can think off is collaborative work, at scale. Meaning the capability to host the colorization on a github or equivalent, and everyone can contribute, one pixel at a time (or frame, or sequence). Because frankly, as of now, the prospect of doing a full colorization on his own is quite daunting, and not many will want to tackle this. But if the effort can be diluted among 10 or 20 individuals, this might attract more contributors.

 

As a real pin owner, I would really love to see both approach succeed in some form. It would increase the number of colorization available, and would provide support for real pin as well (love Tron - I have a physical one, but can't use Serum colorization unfortunately...:-( )

[slydog43]

Great point about PinSound.  I am lucky enough to own over 10 Board in real Pins in my collection.  I loved this product so much at the start, but now that it has changed so much, I'm less enthusiastic about it.  I love my VPin just as much as my real pins.  I will always go with an opensource product when possible.  I really hope a good tutorial video comes out teaching how to colorize a rom with the new editor.

[RusstyT]

18 hours ago, Ashram56 said:

 

However Realpin has a major incentive for contributors: monetization. You would probably not have altsound if Pinsound had not started the discussions and engagement early on. Maybe at a later time there would have been an equivalent solution, but there's no denying Pinsound kickstarted the project.

 

Likewise for colorization authors: I took a look at the available colorization, and roughly 80% to 90% of them offer both virtual pin and real pin. There are very few contributors that are vpin only or offer their realpin colorization for free. So in my opinion, not many colorization authors will move to Serum unless the two points I raised above are solved (content protection and support for realpin HW)

 

Probably a dumb question. How does the author of a coloured DMD get permission to on sell their work from the company that designed the game? I'm curious how they can modify a product and on sell it.

[zedrummer]

That is certainly not a dumb question.

[zedrummer]

Thanks @Ashram56 for all the interesting remarks.

I partially disagree with you.

 

I agree on the "not many colorization authors will move to Serum" part:

• Money reason as you said, but to that I won't change a thing, no protection, no paid version of Serum will be available
• Things come more and more natural all along the creation with one tool and it makes you save a lot of time. When you switch, you lose all these natural technics and restarting with another tool can be a pain. To that end, I tried to add in the editor as much standard shortcuts "Ctrl+C", "Ctrl+V", "Ctrl+A", ... as I can. Also I wanted my interface not to have a menu, everything must be at disposal without looking for them through different sub-menus, etc... So make it as simple and natural from start. And I try to implement any request from the authors even if I am a little late on requests these days due to all theses messages in VPU and FB groups I try to answer as much as possible.
• Moral reason, as there is a tense exchange of messages between the Serum-ers and the PAC-ers here, it is hard to "betray" the side you are already involved in. And I know that I am noone really important in front of Lucky1 (who deserves his reputation), that doesn't help.

 

But on another hand, I disagree: as such, new authors may join the Serum colorization. There are already numerous table authors who spend as much time as colorization authors on their creation with no money expectations. There is another great reward in authoring you can find in the hype around the release of Scared Stiff colorization. @dtatane told me that it is really motivating. And he received some little donations!

For information, there is already a community that you may find in the discord channel https://discord.gg/aK2dNaB6xR. Even if not a lot of people are active in the channel, you can find some of the quiet ones in Discord defending Serum on VPU.

 

Your idea of a collaborative tool for developping is interesting, but my coding skills are limited. (And I'm not that sure that sharing the credit for a colorization with a dozen of other people is as much motivating as it could be to do it alone).

 

Be sure that, eventually, Serum will be available for real pinballs. Some are already working on it, you may contact @mk47, but perhaps some others.

 

Thanks

[zedrummer]

18 hours ago, slydog43 said:

I really hope a good tutorial video comes out teaching how to colorize a rom with the new editor.

It is now available thanks to @dtatane here

 

[freezy]

21 hours ago, Ashram56 said:

You are absolutely correct, although I don't think it's really on purpose

Oh it is absolutely on purpose. I quoted three examples.

 

21 hours ago, Ashram56 said:

However Realpin has a major incentive for contributors: monetization.

The entire table creation community doesn't have this incentive, and yet it's flourishing. I see this as an indication that monetization is only important for a few people, but for the majority it's not.

 

21 hours ago, Ashram56 said:

roughly 80% to 90% of them offer both virtual pin and real pin

Of course, creators want their work to be spread. The relevant questions are how many are selling and how many wouldn't colorize if they couldn't sell.

 

21 hours ago, Ashram56 said:

So in my opinion, not many colorization authors will move to Serum

Again, we can speculate about this all day. I don't see a lot of value in that. I think pretty much all the arguments have been presented, and it's up to Lucky1 if he wants to collaborate with a proper frame format or keep maintaining a hostile fork of dmdext (or, of course, do the right thing, and make PAC work without dmdext).